If I voted strategically …

If I voted strategically, instead of for the candidate I want to win, I probably would vote for Hillary Clinton in the New York Democrat primary and for the Republican candidate in the general election.

The reason is that whoever is President from 2017 to 2021 is going to be blamed for the next stock market crash — unlessithappenslaterin the current year — and it almost certainly will be worse than the 2008 crash.

It will be worse than the one before because nothing has been done to address the abuses that caused the previous crash—neither punishing accounting control fraud, nor breaking up the “too big to fail” banks, or curbing reckless speculation, nor creating good jobs, nor reducing income inequality.

The main thing that is propping up the financial markets is the Federal Reserve Board’s lid on bank interest rates, which drives investors into the stock and bond market, and this cannot go on forever.

If the Presidency is held by defenders of the status quo, it will be easier in 2020 for progressives to make the case for changing the status quo.

∞∞∞

I don’t intend to do that because I don’t practice strategic voting. I vote based on my perception of the candidate’s merits, and make myself one of the people whose views the strategic voters have to take into account. I expect to vote, unless something changes, for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary and the Green Party’s Jill Stein in the general election.